what's the best way to get v8 or a fancy juice store?s? ready, go! hi, juice universe? one large rutabaga, with eggplant... done! that's not fair. glad i had a v8. the original way to fuel your day. the election may be over, but the obama white house and key senate republicans vow to pursue the truth about russian hacking. >> what russia is trying to do, in my view, is to basically take the whole democratic process. >> president-elect trump says he can't wait to get started. >> we will build the wall, we will. there's going to be doors, big beautiful doors. >> new trump tweet storms against boeing and the union leader offer a new twist to the term bully pulpit. >> he didn't tell the truth. he inflated the numbers, and i called him out on it.

>> how republicans plan to quickly use their new power. >> obamacare repeal will be the first item up in the new year. >> "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics," i'm john king. thanks for sharing your sunday morning. a lot to talk about, including mixed signals from the trump transition and this take on vice president joe biden on why hillary clinton lost. >> a guy talks about grabbing a woman's private parts, when a guy says some of the incredibly outrageous things that were said, it sucks up all the oxygen in the air. >> we'll get to that in a bit, but begin with a fascinating question more fit for a spy novel than presidential transition. why is president-elect trump so quick to defend vladimir putin, even if it means trashing the work of america's intelligence agencies? it threatens to shadow the start of the trump presidency.

a new assessment says there's no doubt russia used cyber attacks to meddle in our presidential election and the cia now concludes the kremlin's specific goal was to help trump by hurting hillary clinton. to produce a comprehensive report before he leaves office on the scope and intent of the russian meddling. >> we may be in -- crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after action, to understand what this means, what has happened, and to impart those lessons learned. >> and if team trump thinks they can wave that off as one last partisan act by the outgoing democratic president, there's this problem. key senate republicans are promising a full investigation, too, and say among their questions is this, why does the president-elect keep denying

what he's being told in his own intelligence briefings, that the case against russia is overwhelming? >> i think they are one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. i think they did interfere with our elections, and i want putin personally to pay a price. >> with us to share their reporting and insights this sunday, matt visor of the boston globe, manu raju, and jennifer jacobs with bloomberg politics. let's start with this remarkable statement friday night about reports russia meddled to try to help donald trump. here's the statement, these are the same people that said saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. the election ended a long time ago. it's time to move on and make america great again. picking a fight with the cia is not known as a smart tactic. however, and we'll get to his potential choice for secretary of state in a minute, what donald trump has said about

russia. it's very clear, number one, donald trump doesn't want to believe this, but to pick an open fight with the cia before you take office, why? >> well, for one thing, their statement about the cia isn't quite right. remember that senate investigation concluded that the bush administration overstated that underlying intelligence about the weapons of mass destruction, but what we know is donald trump's rigged argument is coming back to haunt him. he's always going to fight this, because if he doesn't, you know, it de le jit miezs the fact he is a duly elected president, so they are always going to deny the russians had anything to do with it. >> i guess that's the key point, there's a lot of important substance to talk about here, specific concerns people have about the relationship with russia and whether trump has this idolized view or idealistic view, but to your point, is this that he doesn't trust the intelligence, is this a macho thing where he doesn't want anyone to cast questions about how he won? listen to sean spicer here, he's now involved in the trump

transition, my colleague is trying to push him on this question saying the election's over, no one is trying to take the white house away from donald trump. they just want to find out what happened, learn some lessons. listen to sean. >> what proof does anyone have they affected the outcome? because i've heard zero, okay? show me what facts have actually shown that anything undermined that election. donald trump won with 306 electoral votes, 2,300 counties, 62 million americans voted for him. so what proof do you have or does anyone have that any of this affected the outcome of this election? >> it's not the point. no one is saying if we find evidence of -- more evidence of russian hacking, they say they have plenty. no one is saying we're going to take the election away. why would donald trump be opposed to find out if a foreign state actor, responsible for killing innocent children in syria, might have been meddling in american democracy?

>> this is his style. he punches back and he sows distrust. that's exactly what that statement did. look, i'm glad there is a bipartisan consensus, hey, we should look into this, because we are vulnerable. but for his part, yeah, there is a part of this, well, i won, so let's not -- he's afraid of the de le jit miezing part and these recounts sort of got his hackles up. >> but to that point, again, i get i won, the pride of winning. the recounts help donald trump, he won. the recounts found nothing, he won. what's the harm in looking at if the russian government at that level was involved. what's the harm of looking now so he knows? i guess the other question is, why is it when american intelligence agencies tell him things, his reflex seems to be to doubt it? >> that's the biggest thing to me, donald trump is not trusting what the intelligence agencies

are telling him. presumably, in these briefings that he's having. the other thing that i think to watch is the test of power that we're going to see potentially come january when republicans are challenging the republican president. john mccain already has a pretty strong language on putin. lindsey graham, people in key positions are preparing to challenge donald trump over his friendliness with russia, so that's going to be a key clash between congress and the white house. >> i think a lot of republicans do side with donald trump, too, do not want to look into this as much as john mccain does and as much as lindsey graham. in some ways, they are the minority of their own party. there's a push within the house from a democrats to create a bipartisan commission, like the 9/11 commission, to look into that, to look into what happened here, but you're not hearing a lot of support from republicans on that. >> it's numbing to me, having been in this town for a while, if donald trump is right and the cia is wrong, then let's do that investigation so we can fix

whatever the cia is doing. and if the cia is right and putin was meddling in our election, let's build the comprehensive case so donald trump's new secretary of state, who maybe somebody who has a good relationship with vladimir putin, can call him on it. change your behavior, we're going to sanction you. to the point about capitol hill, listen to lindsey graham here saying this is a big deal and i don't care, i'm not backing down. >> it's pretty clear to me that wikileaks was designed to hurt clinton, and it could be us tomorrow, to my republican friends. as a nation, this is not a partisan issue when a foreign country tries to interfere in our elections and all evidence suggests russia did, but i'm going to withhold judgment until we do the investigation. you cannot let that go without a strong, strong pushback. >> again, big fundamental question about the relationship with russia, but on this specific point, anyone who i've spoken to and you spoke to them this week, who's been in these classified briefings, democrat

or republican, or people at the white house say there's no evidence -- say there's no question russia is doing this. there are questions how high it went, how deep it was, one agency might disagree with the cia's finding they were doing this specifically to help trump. that's what they want to get to the bottom of. i don't get the point why we wouldn't want to know the answer. >> you even had the senate minority whip saying this has been going on for a long time, i don't know why anyone is surprised by this, but i would say is, you know, if the republicans are -- i just lost my train of thought. >> it's okay. >> it's one of the few things trump has been consistent about, defending trump and being rather sanguine about russia. i'm not surprised this is the way it's going down. nice to see the other side of the aisle come to mitt romney's conclusion about russia being a threat. >> senator mitch mcconnell, the majority leader, in one of those september meetings according to a source that confirmed this for

me, he actually tried to suggest that we don't want to go forward and have a bipartisan conclusion that russia interfered with the elections to help donald trump, so you're not hearing complete consensus on the republican side, and the question going forward is whether or not the leadership, the relationship leadership, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, will side with the people like lindsey graham and john mccain to make a strong case against russia, and if donald trump is pushing back, it's going to be very hard for them to push back against donald trump. >> the other thing with trump is healthy ego, you know, so you have here a question over him needing help to win the election. and he doesn't like that notion. so i think that's a part of what he's pushing back against. it happens to be russia, which he's had criticism over his close ties with, but more it's hitting him that he didn't do this on his own, that he needed help, you know, not only help, but help from a foreign government, you know, to get across the finish line here.

so i think that's kind of what's fuelling. >> if that's all it is, testosterone and machoism, but the thing that struck me about the interview with michael smerconish, is smart people, who usually make their case in a methodical way get so worked up, it makes you wonder what are they worried about. >> he denied firmly the rnc had been hacked, but everyone should be worried about that if the russian government has these e-mails, private e-mails from the republican national officials, if they want to destabilize the trump administration, all they have to do is at some point release an e-mail from someone like his new chief of staff reince priebus that's critical of donald trump during the campaign to create a rift in that administration. >> in the wake of this, statement comes out friday night saying these are the same people that said saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction, then has a meeting with rex tillerson, likely to be named secretary of state in the coming week. rex tillerson has received a

high award from the russian government, has cut deals with the russian government, rex tillerson is described personally as a friend of putin, if you will. donald trump is not stepping back from this. listen to him on fox news sunday today, doesn't confirm rex tillerson is the pick, but he speaks quite favorably. >> in his case he's much more than a business executive. he's a world class player. he's in charge of, i guess, the largest company in the world. to me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well. he does massive deals in russia, he does massive deals for the company, not for himself, for the company. >> that's donald trump on rex tillerson. let's bring quickly in here john mccain, who you spoke to about this yesterday. john mccain maybe thinks rex tillerson is a big player, but -- >> concerns of reports of his relation with vladimir putin, who's a thug and a murderer, but that's -- we will have hearings

and that issue and other issues concerning him. >> interesting to hear mccain come out aggressively against him so early. mccain has been actually pretty cautious in criticizing trump. he doesn't want to talk about trump, makes it very, very clear in multiple interviews. it shows this could be a difficult confirmation process if tillerson does not assuage those russia, those defense hawks, people very skeptical of russia, because if he loses two or three republican votes and democrats vote against him, he will not get confirmed. >> there are some within trump's inner circle who are hesitant about this tillerson pick and have been advising him against it for that exact reason, saying this is the one pick that could run into resistance. >> democrats going after him on climate issues, big oil issues, although tillerson inside of exxon has sent a lot of money into renewable fuels and doing the research, although he represents big oil, so democrats will come at him there. will he become a proxy for republicans who want to take a

few -- >> i'm open to the idea an unconventional pick at secretary of state could be effective and a player who knows people all over the world is something we can consider, but what concerns me is the consistency of this attitude toward russia that seems quite friendly. i think the senate, if they want to assert their power along this transition, that this might be the place they do it. >> and there's 48 democrats coming in. you need three republicans. people like joe manchin, you know, don't sort of peel away to stop a pick like this. the other interesting point is, you know, by all accounts it was down to sort of mitt romney who called russia the chief geopolitical foe, and rex tillerson, who has a close relationship with vladimir putin, so it is a striking tone that trump is setting in going with tillerson over mitt romney at this juncture. >> not just inside or outside, very completely starkly different views. we'll continue this conversation in a moment. also this, trump cabinet

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hurry, ends sunday. know better sleep with sleep number. welcome back. rudy giuliani out of the running and looks like mitt romney will soon be, too. for the most important cabinet job still open, secretary of state. >> i believe we're in the process of putting together one of the great cabinets that's ever been assembled in our nation's history. you're seeing that. and you'll be seeing some more names coming out next week. >> now, we won't know the true direction of this group until

next month, but there are a few things we do know. the president-elect likes generals and billionaires and seems he doesn't mind sending mixed signals, like taking time to meet with al gore and leonardo dicaprio, but then meeting a climate change denier to lead the environmental protection agency. >> we're going to protect the family farm, and we are going to end the epa intrusion into your lives. >> i want to talk about what we're learning about his, the president-elect's philosophy, and how he's picking these people and who they are, the big change they are likely to bring to washington, but let's talk about where it fits into the skepticism about donald trump's, i'll call it coziness, or affinity to russia and putin. you have new information out just this morning. >> that's right, joint statement, unusual joint statement by leading senators for republicans and democrats, john mccain, the republican lindsey graham, as well as incoming democratic leader chuck schumer and jack reed, ranking member in the armed services committee coming out with a

strong statement on russia saying just now that our democratic institutions have been targeted and recent reports of russian interference in our elections should alarm every american. they go on to talk about the impact that this may have, and they say that we have an obligation to thoroughly examine these incidents and come up with comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber attacks. they say this is not a partisan issue. so it shows a pressure that is going to exist from some corners of the republican party and democrats, too, to push for something. very significant they'd put together a joint statement like this. in particular, the incoming democratic leader and someone as prominent as john mccain. >> to put it out early on sunday morning, when they know this is going to be a topic on the sunday conversations, when they know the tillerson news, potentially the secretary of state, is in the mix. brings up a point where they say there's no doubt this happened and they want to find out the depth and scope of it, when

donald trump just told "time" this past week, i don't believe they interfered. that became a laughing point, not a talking point. anyone who's seen the intelligence says there's beyond question they interfered. they want to get into the hows and whys and how deep, but donald trump won't believe it. >> this is congress, both sides, standing up to the president-elect. >> what's that tell you? >> it's going to be an interesting january and february, you know? i think mccain, especially, you know, the 2008 republican nominee, who, you know, has -- both of these guys, by the way, mccain and graham have had testy relationships with donald trump and donald trump revealing lindsey graham's cell phone number a year ago, so the idea of those two guys now flexing their muscle and, you know, trump is not in a campaign dynamic anymore. this is a dynamic testing the powers of washington. >> i think this is going to be a pick your battles presidency. you're going to have to be really careful about where you contest trump and there's going

to be so many moments to get outraged. they are choosing a topic they believe is very serious. >> also i mentioned the last segment that republican leaders have been quiet on this, but having mccain and graham bang drums on this is going to make it hard for them to continue to stay quiet. they are going to have to say something, particularly someone like mitch mcconnell who's been a hawk and criticized putin and paul ryan. it shows this russia issue is going to loom over donald trump. >> i think they were hoping trump would change his tune, this would be something where he learned more information, took the intelligence briefings, which we're told he's not taking as often as he could, where he'd change his tune on this. philip bunk with the "washington post" has a great graphic on the site, he won the election and we haven't had a chance to question him much. he's allegedly going to have a press conference later this week to talk about how he handles the trump organization, his business, but the last time

trump did have a press conference was when he essentially encouraged russia to produce hillary clinton's e-mails. that's part of this little bit from the campaign. >> i'm not afraid of putin, i never met putin. i respect putin, he's a strong leader, i can tell you that. russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i don't think anybody knows it was russia who broke into the dnc. she's saying russia, russia, russia. maybe it was. it could be russia, but it could also be china. could also be lots of other people. could also be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? from everything i see has no respect for this person. >> well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the united states. >> no puppet, no puppet. you're the puppet. >> there's good theater from the campaign, but about an incredibly important issue, the relationship with russia.

nobody should disagree with that. there are strategic interests that have to be played out, but russia has bullied its neighbors, including taking territory from its neighbors, they are killing children in syria, and the question is really rex tillerson, potentially a friend of putin, could be a good thing, has a relationship with putin, might be able to deliver hard truths, but also michael flynn, who attended a kremlin dinner, seated next to vladimir putin, who's said nice things about russia, also hard things about russia, but this is the big question people are asking, where is this mindset from donald trump coming from? >> the other question is, does a letter from a bunch of senators make him more likely to go than not? i'm not sure with him. that's the weirdness of the donald trump presidency, figuring out who influences him and how. it is a mystery. >> yeah. jim mattis, the likely defense secretary nominee, who probably will get confirmed, i would think, is actually more critical of vladimir putin, far more than

say flynn is and apparently rex tillerson, he's an ally of putin. so there will be people with different views of putin in the cabinet. how that affects donald trump, though, is a different question. >> there's been a signal that he wants to do a good cop, bad cop thing with china, with his selection of terry branstad, long-time friend of many chinese leaders, and that was a signal that trump is willing to have someone who's a little friendlier be his liaison, so we almost thought there would be the opposite for secretary of state, but he is choosing, apparently with a real bridge to russia. >> the good cop, bad cop thing can work, but the question is, what will the boss say. we'll continue the conversation. up next, he likes to work the phones and start twitter wars. how much have we seen from candidate trump and we're now seeing from president-elect trump will carry over once it's all official in 40 days? first, what do you make of the president-elect tweets?

you can vote now. of course you want to, cnn.com/vote.

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welcome back. we are getting some early lessons about how our president-elect plans to govern. if you're a company planning to move jobs overseas, well, expect a phone call. >> i say, hi, how are you doing? hello, mr. president-elect, congratulations. by the way, while we're on the phone, don't leave. please, don't leave. please. and we've had great success. you'll be seeing a lot more success. >> and if you're a critic who goes on television to suggest trump is grossly exaggerating those successes, well, brace for a tweet storm. just ask chuck jones, the indiana steelworkers leader, who says trump is hyping how many jobs carrier will keep in indiana. trump responds with tweets attacking jones personally and attacking his union local. >> he overreacted, president-elect trump did, and i would expect if he's going to tweet something, he should come out and try to justify his

numbers. >> what are we learning here? some of this is funny, some of it is entertaining, especially if you're a trump critic out there, take a deep breath. he's going to be different. he was a different candidate, he's different in the transition. what are we learning about the governing thing, especially when it comes to calling a company or going after a critic on television. do we expect donald trump, somebody on this panel, somebody says something harsh against him or raises questions about him, he's going to spend his days as president doing this? >> i think he's learning it's effective, going to become more clear over time people don't want to be inciting the ire of the president and do what he requests. >> it showcases a potential interventionist president, something that would give a lot of republicans pause that don't like to see a president in the white house picking winners and losers, and it also shows just the power of his social media. i don't think we can overstate, because anything that he says on twitter, he's going to get and

command a national, international audience. he can change the conversation, which is the 140 characters. really, we saw it in the campaign, we're seeing this already when he tweeted about boeing and essentially changed the focus away from a discussion that day, which was about michael flynn and his son pushing fake news stories about a very popular pizza place in washington, d.c., that led to a gunman showing up. so we're showing -- seeing a little bit of both, intervention in the economy, and as well as the way he uses twitter. >> you mention how he uses it to distract us, to get us to follow the next bouncing ball or flashing red light. general flynn was in the news that day, also the same day the ceo of boeing was quoted questioning trump's policies on trade. i mean it, this is a new version of the bully pulpit. >> i think there's some of that involved here, you're right, you

cannot freak out about every single donald trump tweet. many people have tried that. it's exhausting. i think he's going to be different. there's a part that i think is genuinely dangerous. this is what got him here. and the overreaction to so much of it does, all the sound and fury gives republicans the room to do what they like to do while everyone is focusing on something else. that's what happened with these senate races with rob portman and others, i'm going to be the regular guy over here while all this noise is happening. i think that's sort of the weird magic like donald trump for some of this. >> there's a thing about scaleability, i think, with trump and one is he's had a big megaphone, but he's about to get a bigger one in the oval office as president. and the other thing is, during the campaign a lot of times he would punch down, you know, he would make fun of rand paul at the end of the stage, you know,

when there's no need necessarily to. and he won, but you see that now with the union issue. you know, a guy that is out there, you know, that trump just can't contain himself to not punch down at that guy and not focusing on some of the bigger, broader issues. so i think there's an ability to distract trump, you know, and have him go after sort of people who are smaller than him and now he's president of the united states. >> that guy, the union man did say in the "washington post" op-ed that trump was lying through his, rhymes with grass, about the numbers in the carrier deal. a, the numbers, but, b, is this free market economics, the president calling like a governor, calling up ceos. we'll add up the numbers and see what the impact is, but if you're the blue collar guy in a bar in a union hall, you're thinking great, great. one of the reasons i voted for trump and i'm so mad at

washington is because none of those guys do anything for me. politically for trump for the little guy out there it shows he cares. >> it's fundamentally is who he is, i think you'll see a lot of that even when it has some chilling effects on how free market -- >> it's going to be really hard to get stuff done through congress. he can do things on his own like this, he can achieve things he campaigned on, even if he has a difficult time getting support for things on capitol hill. >> you think mike pence would get it, the reference there? another point, though, you know, it's all fine, part of his strategy. the question is sometimes it's not fact based. first i want you to listen to kellyanne conway here on cnn talking when the question was is donald trump going to somehow as president of the united states stay involved, keep his executive producer title for the new "celebrity apprentice." trump has a relationship with

the founding of the business, still has an executive producer title. here's kellyanne conway. >> he is conferring with all types of experts to tell him what he is allowed to do and not to do as the president of the united states, and if this is one of the approved activities, then perhaps he'll consider staying on. were we so concerned about the hours and hours and hours spent on the golf course of the current president? presidents have a right to do things in their spare time or leisure time. nobody objects to that. >> presidents do have a right to do what they want to do in spare time and, of course, if they are willing to take the public scrutiny that comes with it, president obama golfed, we'll see what donald trump does, but you just heard kellyanne conway speaking calmly, hey, we're going to look into this, talk to the lawyers and ethics guys and if it's allowed he'll probably do this to some degree. this is donald trump, reports by cnn i'll be working on the apprentice are ridiculous and untrue. fake news.

so, mr. trump, is kellyanne conway lying? >> we're all speechless. >> businessman, outsider, but he's also a reality tv star and a master of creating a show. and we will see a show for the next four years. >> i don't get the rationale for continuing. the credit is his, he did produce the show, you know, he deserves to have his name on the credits, and maybe take money from it, but i don't get why he accepts that. takes the scrutiny of it. he's now president of the united states. newt gingrich had a comment the other day about how he doesn't need to be executive producer of the celebrity aplprentiapprenti. he's executive producer of the country now. he can afford to give that up. still something about the show for him. >> he is different, he was different, he is different, he'll be different. up next, repealing obamacare. republicans say it's keeping a

long overdo promise. some democrats are betting it's the first step in their party's comeback.

welcome back. house speaker paul ryan visited trump tower for a meeting on friday and said he wanted to get off to a quick start when congress returns in january. >> very exciting meeting. really enjoyed coming up here meeting with the president-elect. we had a great meeting to talk about our transition. we're very excited about hitting the ground running in 2017 to put this country back on track. >> now both house and senate republicans promise to make repealing the affordable care act, obamacare, their first action. republicans think the affordable care act was huge in their success in 2010, 2014, and again in 2016. democrats think, well, we're going to use this to mount a comeback. let's look at the numbers, there were 15.7% of americans uninsured before obamacare took effect. that percentage is now down to 6.9%. democrats are saying you repeal this law, what are you going to

do about this big progress, right, shrinking the uninsured rate. here are the numbers. about 29 million people right now uninsured. the urban institute says if you just repeal obamacare, you'll have close to 60 million. democrats say that is a huge political burden for republicans. republicans say, well, we're going to replace it. we're going to have a new system to do it, but democrats at the moment say, go ahead. >> just repealing obamacare, even though they have nothing to put in its place and saying they'll do it some time down the road will cause huge calamity from one end of america to the other. they don't know what to do. they are like the dog that caught the bus. >> they are like the dog that caught the bus. republicans are saying they are going to do it right out of the box, but they are going to also have a however, semicolon in there, that says we repeal it, but the repeal doesn't take effect until two years down the line, three years down the line? >> this is procedurally they are

forced to do it this way because under the senate rules you can actually avoid a filibuster by repealing most of the law, doing it through the budget process and that's going to happen in january, but you can't replace the law by avoiding a senate filibuster. you need to get democratic support in the senate. you need 60 votes. that means eight democrats, 52 republicans, and it's going to be very difficult for republicans to stay united, let alone get democrats onboard. you're already hearing democratic leaders say we're not going to work with republicans on replacement. if you're going to repeal the law, you're going to own all the problems that come with it. so that's one of the problems. the other one is that if you repeal the law, some believe even if there's a two or three-year transition period, a lot of insurers are going to pull out of the market right away, others will, as well, and create chaos in the market before a replacement takes effect. so even though they can do a repeal and probably will, there's also a lot of challenges ahead in how you replace it.

>> it was so influential, republicans would say in 2010 midterms when they took the congress back, in 2014, they say it helped them in 2016, as well. and the democrats right or naive in thinking this potential chaos could end up being the seeds of their comeback? >> here's the part that democrats don't mention, it's already happening. they are already pulling out of the exchanges. the rates are already going up in huge numbers and it wasn't called the uninsured americans act, it was called the affordable care act act and that's the part where those have been insured have problems with astronomical deductibles and not being that cheap. there are more problems than democrats led on right now. the trick is, that if you want to do health care reform and keep your promises, that's really, really hard. democrats learned that. they didn't keep the promises that came with the last round. that's what you're going to run into every time. >> the president-elect promised if you have pre-existing conditions, won't happen again. he liked you can stay on your

parents' health insurance until you're 26. >> democrats have always struggled in the messaging on health care. so i think to the degree this flips, it's a lot easier for them to argue, you know what, under the republican plan you're going to lose your health insurance. you know, it's an easier messaging thing for democrats to make where they are not necessarily selling the affordable care act, which has been sort of disastrous to the american public. >> interesting to see any sort of blowback that trump voters give towards republicans, because a lot of the people who are benefiting from the law right now are lower income folks, people relying on the subsidies that the affordable care act, that obamacare, gives them. some of those folks coming from the white working class that overwhelmingly voted for donald trump. how does that impact them politically and how does that impact these folks who are relying on the law? so a lot of questions that are unanswered about how this will play out. >> going to have to get to the

substance, republicans are going to be in charge of everything. you mention blowback. one of the interesting things to watch as the president-elect continues his thank you tour as he calls it is when he mentions president obama. his tone is completely changed. remember during the campaign he was the worst president ever, incompetent, part of hillary clinton. now he had that meeting at the oval office, apparently they've been in touch since. listen here, this is donald trump on the road, this one's friday, i believe this is louisiana and a little bit from michigan when the subject of the president comes up. >> president obama, who by the way i've gotten along with so well -- no, no, he's really doing great. he's been so nice. all of a sudden with president obama and michelle and bill and hillary, and they were going to michigan. no, it's okay. no. forget it. that plays great before the election. now we don't care, right? >> i love that the president is now his buddy.

>> just shows that donald trump is a grownup, but he's always listened to advice from others. that's been a myth he's a one-man show. he's always listened to advice. does it seem like he seems like he's aged a bit, even in this short time since the election? he seems tired. we spend a lot of time looking at trump's face. >> low energy? >> oh, no. go back and look at bill clinton at the end. george w. bush, beginning and end. president obama beginning and end, it's striking what the job can do to you. we'll see. reporter's share of the notebook next, including a name in the senate but with a difference. here are the results this morning, we asked what you thought of president-elect trump's tweets. almost all of you said he's going too far. give him a break. hang in there. my budget used to be a real downer.

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we fill our "inside politics" table each week with reporters, not pundits. mary katherine? >> well, there's a kennedy in the senate again. it's the age of trump, so i don't want this news lost under tweets today. in the state of indiana, john kennedy won his run-off against his democratic challenger, who got no help from national democrats to become the 52nd republican in the senate. i think it's emblematic how far we've come, which is democrats had this coalition, even in southern states, and in case democrats ever wonder whether 2016 is truly trolling them, a republican john kennedy in the senate. >> kennedys of massachusetts, probably don't love that that much. matt? >> we've talked a lot about the incoming secretary of state. there's always an outgoing one. john kerry is about to conclude more than three decades in public life as a senator, as a presidential candidate, and as secretary of state, and it's

starting to set in, the reality of that. he's got a few trips still scheduled. he's already the most traveled secretary of state in history, the equivalent of 123 straight days on an airplane over his four years. and now he's about to hand over the reins potentially to rex tillerson, which is going to require a lot of diplomacy in that handoff. much of what kerry has worked for, his accomplishments include the iran deal, the paris climate deal, are potentially going to be dismantled, so kerry will work from the outside still on climate change, it's a big passion of his, but for the first time since 1983 outside of public office. >> long ago when i worked in boston, he was lieutenant governor. been a long ride. manu? >> divide and conquer. what they are trying to do is latch on to donald trump's more popular and populist economic proposals that actually divide republicans, like his 35% tariff on companies that ship operations overseas or renegotiating a potentially

pulling out of nafta. the idea, of course, is try to attract some of those white working class voters who they struggled with in the elections, but also it raises some concerns among democrats who believe that the rush to normalize donald trump in their words will make it harder for them to paint him as an extreme president. but right now watch for them to look and start to talk about those domestic issues, particularly for those senators in difficult races in 2018. >> 40 days to figure out the strategy. jennifer? >> one person who's amassed real power in the trump transition is a woman who home schools her four children and co-owns a bakery in manhattan, 43-year-old daughter of a billionaire gop donor and her talent is bringing in talent. she has her fingerprints on everything from the search for secretary of state, press secretary, new gop chairman, and what's interesting about her, her family has pushed for years this agenda's antiestablishment populist agenda and now she is

one of the main influencers for the trump cabinet. >> shake up the trump cabinet. not a bad thing to have new faces in down. donald trump was one of 17 candidates who sought the republican nomination for president. so far only one of the other 16 has been tapped for a cabinet job. ben carson, but there could soon be a second. during the primaries the former texas governor rick perry called trump a cancer on conservatismc but they later made peace. we certainly will, that's it for "inside politics." again, thanks for sharing your sunday morning. up next, vice president joe biden joins "state of the union" with jake tapper. izon, and the best deals are on the best network. with no surprise overages, you can use your data worry free and even carry over the data you don't use. and right now get four lines and 20 gigs for only $40 per line. you'll even get the samsung galaxy s7,

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putin's plot. has the cia uncovered evidence that the russians tried to swing the election for donald trump? a new report says yes, but team trump is fighting back. the latest on what we know now.